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Manassas. Wilson’s Creek. Fort Donelson. Pea Ridge. All the killed and wounded from these battles combined fail to even come close to the casualties which occurred at Shiloh. The “place of peace,” as the Hebrew for Shiloh translates, would soon become one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War. But on the sunny afternoon of April 5, 1862, the banks of the Tennessee River were alive with the sights and sounds of spring. The wildlife was abundant and the flowers were in full bloom. During the next 48 hours, the beautiful Tennessee Valley would host some of the most hellish scenes known to man. Both Federal soldiers and Rebels who would go into the Battle of Shiloh anxious to “see the Elephant,” as they commonly referred to combat, would never be so eager to fight again. The leader of the Army of Tennessee, Major-General Ulysses S. Grant, would later write that, “Shiloh was the severest battle fought at the West during the war” (Grant, 355-356). During the previous winter, Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnston had given up much ground to the Union Forces, retreating his disheartened Rebels halfway across the South to Corinth, Mississippi. General Henry Wager Halleck, commander of the Union forces in the